VWBPE Welcome

The 7th Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference is very pleased to announce our opening keynote: Philip Rosedale, CEO of High Fidelity, creator and founder of Second Life. Ebbe Altberg, the new CEO of Linden Lab, makers of Second Life, will also present at the conference. We have an amazing lineup of over 70 speakers, panels, workshops, sim demonstrations, poster presentations throughout the four-day conference.

Philip Rosedale CEO High Fidelity

Ebbe Altberg CEO Linden Lab

Our open conference will be held in two immersive environments, Second Life and OSGrid. A wide range of subjects will be covered concerning virtual worlds and how we use them for the future for education, virtual reality, smart games, arts and science, and the future of enhanced collaborative learning technology.

Justin Clark-Casey: Connections in an Open Place Work, play, culture, education – all these are either already primarily online phenomena or will soon become so. Justin will explore where he thinks OpenSimulator fits into this vision and why open places are critical for the connections that we need in a global online culture. Thursday, April 10, 2014 — 7:00am SLT (PDT) — OSGrid VWBPE Main Auditorium

Maria Korolov: The Coming 3D Future Shock The rapid development of technologies like the Oculus Rift is accelerating the spread of immersive 3D experiences to the people – can we keep up? What is coming? Thursday, April 10, 2014 — 10:05am SLT (PDT) — OSGrid VWBPE Main Auditorium

Andrew Hughes: Using Virtual Worlds and Gamification to Enhance Learning Designing Digitally, Inc. has used Gamification and Game Mechanics to create innovative and effective learning both in-world and out-world. This will include best practices, case studies, and stories along the way of both success and failures in this realm, along with understanding the obstacles experienced by corporate cultures in adopting virtual worlds. Friday, April 11, 2014 — 7:00 a.m. SLT (PDT) — Second Life VWBPE Main Auditorium

David Gibson: Design Implications of Game-Based Analyses This talk will briefly describe the context, methods and broad findings from two game-based analyses and describes key explanatory constructs use to make claims about the users, as well as the implications for design of digital game-based learning and assessment applications in virtual worlds. Saturday, April 12, 2014 — 7:00 a.m. SLT (PDT) — Second Life VWBPE Main Auditorium

Larysa Nadolny: There’s Always Room for a Virtual Zipline Dr. Larysa Nadolny will share lessons learned from the NSF funded SciEthics Interactive project, a virtual world simulation with an ethics twist, to show it’s possible to make room for fun when serious learning is the goal. Saturday, April 12, 2014 — 1:00 p.m. SLT (PDT) — Second Life VWBPE Main Auditorium

The main conference will be followed up by a 3-week Massively Open Online Course (MOOC) which will highlight examples of educational design from a myriad of other immersive environments. Past presentations have included environments such as Club Penguin, Eve Online, World of Warcraft, SpotOn3D, InWorldz, Sococo, and a host of other virtual platforms.